If a drunk driver hit you, do everything you would do after any crash, with two additions: make sure law enforcement is called and that they actually investigate the impairment on scene, and talk to a lawyer early. The drunk driving part changes your case in ways worth real money to you, and most of that depends on evidence collected in the first few days.
Understand from the start that there are two separate cases here. The state’s case against the driver belongs to the state, and nobody in it is working on getting you paid. Your claim is yours, and it does not advance while you wait on criminal court.
What should I do at the scene if I think the other driver was drunk?
- Call 911 and say what you observed. Not just “there has been an accident.” Tell the dispatcher you believe the other driver is impaired, and why: slurred speech, the smell of alcohol, stumbling, open containers. That is what gets an officer looking at the driver instead of just writing a crash report.
- Do not confront them. Impaired people are unpredictable, and nothing you say on the roadside helps your case. Stay in your car with the doors locked if you feel unsafe.
- Write down the car and the plate immediately. Drunk drivers leave scenes. If they take off before police arrive, the color, body style, damage, and any part of the plate is what gives you a case later.
- Get names and numbers from witnesses. Bystanders often saw the driving before the crash, and how somebody was driving beforehand can matter as much as anything measured afterward.
- Take photos and look for cameras. Gas stations, hotels, restaurants, and homes along the beach have them, and most systems record over themselves within days. This is the one thing on the list that genuinely cannot wait.
- Get medical attention. Your PIP requires that your first treatment happen within 14 days of the crash, and that clock does not pause for an investigation.
Why do so many of these happen in Panama City Beach?
Because of what this town is. Front Beach Road and Thomas Drive have bars and restaurants stacked along a strip that visitors are driving for the first time, at night, in an unfamiliar car, after a long day in the sun. Add the spring and summer crowds and you get a combination locals learn to plan around and tourists do not.
Panama City Beach Police work DUI enforcement hard along the beach, and the Bay County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Highway Patrol do the same out on Highway 98. From a safety standpoint that is a good thing. For your injury claim it matters for a reason people do not think about: an agency that takes impaired driving seriously produces documentation. Field sobriety observations, breath test results, body camera footage, an arrest report, witness statements taken that night. That paperwork is built for the criminal case, but it is available to your civil case, and it beats anything anyone can reconstruct six months later.
That is why I push people to call 911 rather than exchange information and go home. A crash where nobody investigated the driver is a much harder case than one where somebody did.
Does the drunk driver have to be convicted before I can recover?
No, and I would not wait on it.
The criminal case and your injury claim are separate proceedings with different burdens of proof. The state has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. You have to prove yours by the greater weight of the evidence, which is a lower bar. A driver can walk out of criminal court and still owe you money.
I had a client hit by a drunk driver who fled the scene. Law enforcement developed a suspect but was never able to confirm it was him, and the investigation stopped there. As far as the criminal system was concerned, that was the end of it, and my client was left believing nobody would be held responsible.
We had one thing worth having: video of the incident from a nearby gas station. So I ran my own investigation, worked from that footage, and identified who I believed the driver was. When we opened a claim with the insurance company, the carrier confirmed he owned the vehicle. That confirmation is what turned a dead-end police report into a case.
Here is the part that is worth understanding, because the sequence mattered. I pursued my client’s uninsured motorist coverage first, since at that point we had a driver nobody had confirmed. Only later did we determine there was liability coverage on the at-fault driver’s side. That order worked in my client’s favor: uninsured motorist coverage sits on top of the at-fault driver’s liability coverage, so when the liability side pays first, the UM carrier ordinarily gets credit for that payment against what it owes. Because the UM claim was resolved before the liability coverage surfaced, my client likely ended up with more than he would have if we had found the liability policy first.
Two things I take from that case. Uninsured motorist coverage is the most commonly missed coverage I see, because people assume a driver who ran means they are out of luck. And a police investigation that goes nowhere does not mean your claim goes nowhere. If you were hit by a driver who left the scene, here is what to do about a hit and run in Florida in more detail.
What are punitive damages, and can I get them from a drunk driver?
Ordinary damages compensate you for what happened: medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering. Punitive damages are different in kind. They are not about your losses at all. They exist to punish conduct that crossed a line and to discourage others from repeating it, and driving drunk is close to the classic example.
Florida ordinarily limits how large a punitive damages award can be. That limit does not apply to a defendant who was under the influence to the point that their normal faculties were impaired, or who was at a blood or breath alcohol level of 0.08 or higher. The Legislature carved impaired drivers out of that protection on purpose, and you can read the provision at Florida Statutes section 768.736.
What people misunderstand is the procedure. You generally do not get to write a punitive damages claim into your complaint on day one. Broadly, you file the case, develop the evidence through discovery, and then move to amend the complaint to add the claim, showing the judge a reasonable basis for it. It is a real step with a real standard, not a box you check.
Two practical consequences follow. First, it is another reason early evidence matters so much, because the proof you need for that motion comes from the investigation, the testing, and the witnesses. Second, a punitive damages claim reaches past the policy toward the driver personally, and an insurance company that sees its own insured exposed that way tends to treat the file very differently than a routine claim.
Key takeaways
- Say the word “impaired” when you call 911. That is what gets the driver investigated on scene instead of just a crash report written.
- Do not wait on the criminal case. It is a separate proceeding with a higher burden of proof, and your claim does not move forward while you watch it.
- Preserve video fast. Nearby cameras overwrite in days, and in my experience that footage is often the whole case.
- A stalled police investigation is not the end. I identified a fleeing drunk driver from gas station video after law enforcement stopped, and the carrier confirmed he owned the vehicle.
- Ask about uninsured motorist coverage every time. It is the most commonly missed coverage there is, and in that case the order we pursued it in put more money in my client’s pocket.
If a drunk driver hurt you, I will look at the crash report, the criminal file, and every policy that might apply, at no charge, and there is no fee unless we recover for you. Call me, Phillip Stamman, at my Panama City Beach office: (850) 842-5449, or contact me here for a free consultation. If the crash just happened, start with what to do in the first two weeks after a Florida wreck, and you can read more about how I handle car accident cases in Panama City Beach.
This post is general information about Florida law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Whether any particular coverage applies depends on the exact policy language and on facts specific to your situation. The case described here depends on the facts of that case, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome in any other case. Every crash is different; talk to a lawyer about yours.
Stay safe out there,
Phillip Stamman
Solo Personal Injury Lawyer
Panama City Beach, Florida